A Merry Christmas it was!

Star Wars, Macs, and Shotguns were the theme of our Christmas this year.  But most of all we are thankful for the best gift of all, Jesus!  

this was my favorite Christmas dress for Brooklyn.  I am so excited because I know she'll be able to wear again next year!

Brooklyn had more fun sitting, standing, and just plain looking cute than actually opening the presents.

He got it!  Mom and Dad did a great job at pulling off the big surprise.  Jeremy finally got his Browning shotgun.  

Weston completely exhausted this is exactly how we found him.  

Everything with me has to be a tradition.  I have never opened presents in the morning before.  I grew up always opening presents Christmas eve night.  So this year we could only make it work doing our Christmas a few days early and in the morning.  It was fun and I wanted to think of something the kids would remember.  So we went to the donut shop all of us in our PJ's (which Weston thought was the coolest thing ever) and we had Christmas breakfast.  Poor Weston and his wheat allergy.  Not to fun at the donut shop.   I wasn't thinking to clearly on that one.  May have to change our tradition to the gluten free section of HEB and then sit in the cafe on the run.  But don't those kids look cute!

Clone Wars, Star Wars, Storm Troopers, Obi Wan, red and green light sabers. .  .  I have learned more about these things than I ever thought possible.  This Christmas will forever stay in my mind as the Star Wars Christmas.  This Christmas we put 1700 miles on our suburban visiting family and it really wasn't so bad.  The kids did amazingly well thanks to the DVD player and new movies.  The Christmas we found out that Jeremy and I are the only ones who actually enjoy Whataburger.  The Christmas that Weston and I learned remote control cars work better on a driveway than a rocky road.  The Christmas I got witness Brooklyn's first attempt at being aggressive when she saw Madison with M&M's.   Our first Christmas with our future sister-in-law.  Our first Christmas with Ryder.  The Christmas that Weston was truly excited about the magic of Christmas.  A Christmas full of great memories, birthday cakes for Jesus, family, road trips, and thankfulness.  When asked whose birthday we are celebrating Weston said "Collin's and Jesus', silly Mommy"  

Look who is walking!

My Brookie-Boo!  She decided around Thanksgiving that she could indeed walk and wanted to show it off to everyone.  Brooklyn is definitely going to be on her own schedule and do things her own way.    She loves to wear the linkydo's as bracelets, loves having her hair brushed (mind you I said brushed but not put up or fixed), and she is starting to hold her own with her brother.  

Here she is struttin' her stuff

I love the fall. . .

Isn't her dress precious? Staci made it and the bow for her and I LOVED it! She got a lot of use out of both of them. She ended up with three different Halloween outfits, I decided I really like themed clothes for the holidays. Something you really can't do to much with a boy. Oh the joys of having a little girl!!

Lovin' my Bubba!
Walk baby, walk. . .
Brooklyn is still not really walking. She is taking more steps everyday but I wouldn't say she is walking. She does really well if she is holding on to us and loves to walk with Weston. I think she doesn't really care if she walks or not. It's been a source of hurt mommy feelings when the subject comes up at a certain Mom's group I'm in. Only because they wanted to put her in the creepers class with babies who are MUCH younger than her. Logically I get it but it still didn't really make sense to me, so maybe I don't get it. I had to pull out my "I have a degree in early childhood card and I work as a nursery coordinator at our church" to get my point across that she needs to be in a class with children her own age so she will be around other children her age and want to walk. It ended up with an exasperated me saying "Her brain is fine! She just doesn't want to walk!" That was about a month ago. So naturally it came up again on Friday. I chose to just nod my head and thank them for their thoughts. Most of the time when it comes up lately I go into "well I walked late, my nephew was 17 months, her brother was 15 months. She didn't really stand a chance to walk by 12 months" I want to follow up with, and why do you care?
The comments some people make are really comical when you think about it. I had one lady ask me how my son has brown eyes and my daughter blue. I am trying to think of something really clever to say and Weston busts out with "Mommy and Weston have brown eyes and Brookie and Daddy have blue eyes!" DNA is kinda weird like that. . .


Here's a story of a lovely lady. . . .

More themed clothes

Ryder, Hunter, Weston and Brooklyn. Hayden wasn't really feeling in the mood for pictures this day. We'll have to try again this weekend. Getting a picture of all five is pretty difficult I think we are going to let the professionals have a go at it.

Hurricane Brooklyn

We learned the day after Hurricane Ike why we came out so well. We were going to have to be prepared for Hurricane Brooklyn. We were so sleep deprived from the closet camp out the night before that all of us were walking and falling all over the place. Jeremy went upstairs to get Brooklyn out of bed and when he was coming down he lost his footing and fell hard while holding Brookie. He caught himself on his elbow and bottom and tried to hold Brooklyn up with his other hand so he didn't land on her. I heard him hit and the thoughts that were going through my mind were awful. I really expected them to be at the bottom of the staircase or see Jeremy on top of the baby. Brooklyn was pretty upset but not the kind of cry you would expect if she had been really hurt. I had made brownies so we fed her some brownies to get her calmed down and when that didn't work we thought the fall must have really scared her. She stayed pretty fussy the rest of the day and then we noticed she wouldn't put any weight on her right foot. She also got really upset when we changed her diaper. Nothing around town was open to get her into and we learned later that the emergency room, most likely would have sent us home.

I decided to take her to her doctor Monday morning and he sent us for an x-ray. Before the x-ray I called and had Jeremy meet me at the hospital. I have never felt so sorry for him as I did when we found out Brooklyn's ankle was broken. It was a buckle fracture in her lower tibia and apparently quite a common break in toddlers. Poor Jeremy was near tears when we headed to the orthopedic surgeon. But she is fine and handled the broken leg much better than her Daddy did. Check out Brooklyn's new look for the fall season.

If you're going to have a cast it might as well be hot pink!

The cast really didn't bother her at all and she only had to wear it for three weeks. She loved to bang it against her baby bed at about three in the morning over and over again but other than that and bath time it wasn't so bad. She didn't miss a beat with that thing on. The doctor told us it might push back her walking a little bit we told him that wasn't a big deal since she didn't want to walk before the broken leg! She had her 15 month appointment while her leg was broken and she still couldn't break into the 20 pound range even with the cast! She was 19 pounds 7 ounces.

She has now gotten the cast off and gets around really well. Still choosing not to walk. Oh she can walk we saw her do it last weekend going after Dado's blackberry. Apparently if you don't have anything good enough she's not going to walk for it! Why should she when she clearly doesn't have too.

yIKEs, we don't like IKE

We made it through our first Hurricane to officially hit Houston since we have lived here. We "hunkered down", froze water bottles, bought ice, and wondered what the heck we should do to be prepared for a hurricane the size of Texas coming right at us. The damage in the Houston area has been truly devastating but in our area we got the very least of this bad storm. We stayed and at our house and suffered no damage what so ever. But, the next time they say a hurricane is coming we are SO out of here! We kept power, satellite, and water and almost felt guilty when people asked how long we did without. For whatever reason our section of the neighborhood all stayed in power. These are just a few pictures around our house, nothing to terrible at all.

Here we are "hunkered down" I called my Dad to see what hunkered down meant and neither one of us really came up with a good definition. But this is as close as we could figure out. We all slept in our closet. Or actually Weston slept in our closet because he was the only one who could actually sleep through a hurricane. I will be fine if I never here the words "hunker down" again. The news, the radio, random people all kept saying it over and over and over again. It's kind of a joke around our house now.

Even in the closet when all four of us where in there we could hear the wind howling through the house. Very creepy and I will admit pretty scary. Weston thought it was so much fun to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's closet. So much fun in fact that he prayed for another hurricane so he could sleep our closet again. Maybe we should just do a family closet camp out night instead of hunkering down for a massive hurricane in the future. (I'm seeing how many times I can use the made up word "hunker down" in one post. I don't see many other opportunities to use it)

We did all lay down at one point but Brooklyn was ticked that we were all staring at her in the pack n play, Weston slept but managed to turn upside down and sideways and steam roll across me and Jeremy. We put Brooklyn on the floor and she thought it was play time, Sophie was going nuts because that's what our crazy dog does and Jeremy and I wanted play by play of where Ike was headed. All in all not a bad night considering how well we made it through the storm.

What happens when Daddy dresses the baby

Our summer in pictures

Brooklyn's One Year Pictures

At a year Brooklyn's stats are 17 pounds 10 ounces. I can't remember her length off the top off my head and I never really think they are all that accurate in measuring anyway. I remember thinking Weston was small and he was 20 pounds at a year. She is a tiny little princess. I find it hard to believe because the girl eats all the time! She loves food. It's rare to give her something she doesn't want to eat and usually she finishes off what Weston leaves over. I think she has that Gilliam metabolism, how great for her!

How is it possible that she is ONE?

Or for that matter nearly 16 months since we all know that I am posting this nearly four months late!

Her party was so much fun and I had a great time planning and making it as pink as I possibly could. Brooklyn did a good job getting herself pink too! She loves cake about as much as her Mama. At a year she is all smiles, loves to cuddle, and is such a joy. We love more than I ever thought possible. How could I have known how much Mommy, Daddy and Weston would need you in our lives sweet Brooklyn. You bring all of us such joy.

At our family reunion in Las Cruces the weekend before Brooklyn's party, we ran into Super K Mart. After a night of no sleep we realized pretty quick that Brooklyn needed a real pack n play and not the metal cage thing at the hotel. We didn't find a pack n play but I did find the cute "Brooklyn" t-shirt for the bargain price of $9.99. I think it would totally fun to go to New York and load up on Brooklyn T-Shirts. For that matter I might drop by the Westin Hotel and get a few t-shirts to represent my sweet baby boy. Except then it would be spelled wrong and that really bugs me. If you happen to notice the "B" spray painted on the concrete in our backyard I thought it would be a nice touch. I hung butterflies from the ceiling moved furniture and had about 50 wooden pinwheels all throught the inside and outside, paid a ridiculous amount on cupcakes that so weren't my vision of what I wanted and started planning her party right after she was born. So would I really go as far to paint a B that will NOT ever fade or go away? No, I wouldn't go that far. I was spray painting primer on her letters in her room before she was born and for whatever reason thought the primer was clear. It obviously was not clear and a year later it's still there and going strong. I think I might add a "W" to give both kids proper recognition. Oh well it fit the theme of Brooklyn and Butterflies.